Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that"Earth laughs in flowers" Well, you know what?
拉爾夫·沃爾多·愛默生寫道：“大地在花叢中歡笑。”你知道嗎？
I don't think it's funny. If you're like me, the coming of spring signals one thing: allergies.
我覺得一點都不好笑。如果你像我一樣，春天的到來就意味著一件事：過敏。
I mean seriously, how much crud can my head really hold? It's like Hermione's purse up in there.
我的意思是，說真的，我的腦袋能裝多少髒東西？就像赫敏的錢包在裡面。
Of course it's not really fair to blame flowers for most seasonal allergies. While most plants do keep their pollen-covered private parts right out there in the open, flower pollen is usually too heavy to go airborne, instead they get bees and other pollinators to help them do the fertilization deed.
當然，把大多數季節性過敏歸咎於鮮花是不公平的。雖然大多數植物它們裹著花粉的中心部位都裸露在外面，但花粉太重，不能在空氣中傳播，它們會讓蜜蜂和其他傳粉者幫助它們完成受精。
It's mainly trees and grasses that let their genetic material loose on the wind, and they don't mess around. I mean really? !
主要是樹和草讓它們的遺傳物質隨風飄散，它們不會亂跑。我是說真的嗎？！
Is that necessary? If one tree needs that much pollen to reproduce, maybe evolution is trying to tell you something.
有必要嗎？如果一棵樹需要那麼多花粉來繁殖，也許進化論是想告訴你一些事情。
That's all I'm saying. Maybe this was a mistake… By my immune system!
這就是我想說的。也許這就是錯誤....由我的免疫系統引起的！
Allergic reactions are the result of our immune system going haywire, and doing battle with completely and totally harmless stuff like pollen, dust, or pet dander, because it clearly has nothing better to do. Your body enlists several types of antibodies in its immune army.
過敏反應是免疫系統紊亂的結果，就是與花粉、灰塵或寵物皮屑等完全無害的物質作鬥爭，因為它顯然沒別的事可做。你的身體把幾種抗體招募進了免疫大軍中。
Most are sent out to fight different invaders like viruses and bacteria, but this one, IgE, seems to have just one purpose: making us miserable a few times a year… I mean mediating our body's response o allergens. When we are first exposed to an allergen, we don't have much of a reaction… on the outside.
大多數人被派出去與病毒和細菌等不同的入侵者作鬥爭，但這一種，IgE，似乎只有一個目的：讓我們一年痛苦幾次……我的意思是調節我們身體以對過敏原做出反應。當我們第一次接觸過敏原時，我們沒有太多的反應……在身體外部是這樣。
But inside our bodies, it's different. A special cell in our immune system vacuums up foreign antigens and presents them to other cells, like"Hey, check this out, this doesn't belong here".
但在我們體內，那就不一樣了。我們免疫系統中的一個特殊細胞清掃出外來抗原，並將其呈現給其他細胞，比如“嘿，看看這個，這個不是這裡的”。
Mr. T cell sniffs it out, and says, "I pity the fool who try and invade my mucous membrane", sending out a chemical signal that turns on our B cell antibody factories which pump out IgE proteins that bind specifically to the pollen, cat hair, bee venom, whatever. The IgEs latch on to these mast cells, where they wait quietly for the NEXT time the allergen shows up, and when that happens, BAM, the mast cells start pumping out a chemical called histamine.
T細胞先生嗅出它的氣味，說，“我很同情這個試圖侵入我粘膜的蠢貨”，併發出一個化學信號，啟動我們的B細胞抗體工廠，這個工廠將針對花粉、貓毛、蜂毒等的產生大量免疫球蛋白。IGE附著在這些肥大細胞，它們在那安靜地等待下一次過敏原出現，當這發生時，砰的一聲，肥大細胞開始分泌一種叫做組胺的化學物質。
You might know it from all the anti-histamines you take to beg it, at any cost, to please stop doing its histamine thing. Histamine causes blood vessels in your nose to dilate and become leaky, it stimulates nerves to make you sneeze, and even increases inflammation, giving you that nice red-nosed look to set off those bloodshot eyes.
你可能從你服用的所有抗組胺藥中知道它，不惜任何代價，乞求它不要再做組胺的事情。組胺會使你鼻子裡的血管擴張然後流鼻涕，它會刺激你的神經讓你打噴嚏，甚至加劇炎症，給你一個漂亮的紅鼻子來襯托那些充血的眼睛。
What's weird is that in developed countries, allergies seem to be getting more common. In the US, food allergies in children have increased by 50% since 1997, and environmental allergies are estimated to affect up to one in three people at any time.
奇怪的是，在發達國家，過敏似乎越來越普遍。在美國，兒童的食物過敏自1997年以來增加了50%，且估計環境過敏隨時都會影響到三分之一的人。
So, what gives? Allergies do seem to have a genetic basis.
所以，誰造成的呢？過敏似乎確實有遺傳基礎。
Parents with allergies are more likely to have children with allergies, although they're not necessarily to the same thing, but identical twins are likely to share specific allergies. Many scientists think that perhaps we're living too clean, that our hygienic lifestyle doesn't train our immune systems correctly from a young age.
有過敏症的父母更有可能生有過敏症的孩子，儘管他們不一定對同一種東西過敏，但同卵雙胞胎可能會有特定的過敏症。許多科學家認為，也許我們生活得太乾淨了，我們的衛生生活方式不能從很小的時候正確地訓練我們的免疫系統。
Many allergies and autoimmune diseases are less common in the developing world, and as nations get richer, they get more allergic. Maybe playing in the mud a bit more could keep us from sneezing later in life.
許多過敏症和自身免疫性疾病在發展中國家並不常見，而且隨著國家變得富裕，人們會變得更加過敏。也許在泥裡多玩一點可以防止我們以後打噴嚏。
Some researchers have found that increasing exposure to an antigen over time, usually in drops placed under the tongue, can desensitize the body from reacting. And in 2013, Johns Hopkins researchers pinpointed a pathway involving the protein TGF-beta as a possible culprit for this whole sneezy mess.
一些研究人員發現，隨著時間的推移，接觸抗原的次數增多（通常是在舌下滴入的液滴中），會使身體失去反應力。而在2013年，約翰霍普金斯大學的研究人員發現了一種涉及TGFβ蛋白的途徑，這可能是導致整個噴嚏混亂的罪魁禍首。
Our microbiome might have something to do with it too. A small study done by the BBC found fewer species of bacteria living on folks with allergies than without, and researchers have seen that when other parts of the immune system were exposed to and fought off bacteria, it silenced the part of the immune system that activates IgE.
這也可能跟我們的微生物群有關。英國廣播公司的一項小型研究發現，過敏人群身上的細菌種類比不過敏人群少，研究人員發現，當免疫系統的其他部分暴露在細菌中並與之抗爭時，這個過程抑制住了免疫系統激活免疫球蛋白E的部分。
In another study, mice given certain bacteria were cured of a peanut allergy. It's likely that, like most things in medicine, allergies are likely due to more than one cause, our hygiene, our environment, even our changing lifestyles.
在另一項研究中，給小鼠特定細菌可以治癒它們的花生過敏。像醫學上的大多數東西一樣，過敏很可能是由多種原因引起的，包括我們的衛生、環境，甚至是我們不斷變化的生活方式。
But one thing's for sure. It's not fun.
但有一點可以確定。這一點也不好笑。
Stay curious.
保持好奇心
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